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Trulia's Chief Economist Jed Kolko takes a look at national rental trends and the discounts couples get for moving in. Nationally, renting a 2-bedroom apartment is 35% cheaper than two 1-bedroom apartments. Even a 3-bedroom apartment is 12% cheaper than two 1-bedroom apartments. But the discount for shacking up is smallest in New York and Dallas.

It’s Valentine’s Day. Picture a romantic restaurant. Main course is finished. Lights are low. Your sweetheart leans over the table, and with a quiet voice, starts to speak. You prepare yourself for any possible conversation, playing each one out in your head. And then the question comes: “How much do you think we’ll save if we move in together?”

That might not be the romantic discussion you expected. But it’s an important one. Housing costs and economics affect whether people get roommates, live with their parents, or – yes – move in with their sweetheart. In general, living together saves money – but that depends on how many bedrooms you upgrade to and where you live.

To find out exactly what the cost tradeoffs are, we used rental listings on Trulia to calculate how much you’d save if you and your sweetheart traded in your separate 1-bedroom apartments and moved into a 2-bed or even a 3-bed unit. For this analysis, we did not simply compare median rents for 1-bed, 2-bed, and 3-bed apartments, because that would not be an apples-to-apples comparison: apartments with more bedrooms might be in different neighborhoods, have more amenities, or be in better-maintained buildings. Instead, we compared units in the same apartment building, calculating the average price difference by number of bedrooms for apartments within a building (see note below).

Love Can Save You 35% on Rent

Nationally, a 2-bedroom apartment rents for 30% more, on average, than a 1-bedroom in the same building. A bit of math reveals that trading in two 1-bedroom apartments for a 2-bedroom would save you 35% on rent. That makes sense: Renting a 2-bedroom should be less than renting two 1-bedrooms since the total number of bedrooms stays the same but you merge into one kitchen and maybe even one bathroom.

What’s more surprising is that you’d even save on housing costs by trading in two 1-bedroom apartments for a 3-bedroom. Nationally, a 3-bedroom apartment rents for 75% more, on average, than a 1-bedroom in the same building. That means if you traded in two 1-bedroom apartments for a 3-bedroom, you’d still save 12% on housing – and you and your sweetie would have a bedroom to share and a spare room each.